ABC News is cutting 10 percent of its work force, or about 125 jobs, as part of an overall mandate by Walt Disney Co., its corporate parent.

ABC News has offered buyouts to its North American employees as part of the program that Disney announced in March, which will result in some 4,000 jobs being eliminated throughout Disney's operations.

About 85 ABC News employees were informed this month that they were approved to receive the buyout offers. Another 20 or 30 people will be laid off in coming weeks.

As a result of those cuts, attrition and eliminating open positions, a total of 125 jobs will be cut from ABC News' work force of 1,200.

NBC also announced plans to lay off staff in January, saying it would eliminate up to 600 jobs because of the poor economic climate. NBC also shut down its Internet subsidiary and laid off most of that staff.

CBS has not announced any job cuts.

Already hit by an advertising slowdown, major TV networks have been bracing for poor preseason sales of commercial time for their fall shows. Advance sales just began after the networks presented their new lineups to advertisers.

(Associated Press)

WQED ERRS "ANNE": Sunday night at 9 WQED accidentally aired the original "Anne of Green Gables" for 18 minutes before someone realized the wrong tape had been played and switched it to the scheduled "Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel."

For anyone who tuned out by then, WQED will air the sequel tomorrow at 8 p.m. Both editions of "Anne" will air in a marathon Sunday beginning at noon.

TONYS RATINGS: Even "The Producers" couldn't produce a ratings winner for the Tonys. According to preliminary national numbers released Monday by CBS, "The 55th Annual Tony Awards" logged a 6.4 household rating and a 10 share of all homes watching TV from 9 to 11 p.m. -- a gain of just 3 percent from last year.

Both ABC, with "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" and "The Practice," and NBC, with basketball playoffs and "Weakest Link," beat out CBS.